Numerous electrical connector assemblies are interconnected by means of male and female contacts. Quite often, the contacts are stamped and formed from planar metal material or stock in a continuous manner using carrier strips joining a plurality of contacts, in a mass production environment.
A conventional female contact often is stamped from the flat metal stock and formed to include one or more spring arms for engaging the male contact. Usually, the spring arms are bent such that smooth surfaces of the metal stock are presented for engagement with the male contact. The male contact usually is stamped in a configuration which includes a body or mounting portion for mounting the male contact in an appropriate housing, and a pin portion projecting from the body for mating with the female contact.
One of the problems with electrical contacts and/or connectors of the character described is that the stamped edges or sides of the male contact pin are irregular or "rough" due to the nature of the stamping operation, in contrast to the smooth surfaces of the metal stock from which the contacts are stamped. If the rough sides of the male contact pin are presented for engagement with the female contact, inferior interconnections are made and, in situations of repeated interconnections and disconnections, scoring of the female contact results. This is particularly a problem in electrical contacts which are plated with a highly conductive or non-corrosive metal film. If the rough or stamped sides of the male contact repeatedly wipe over the plated surfaces of the female contact during repeated interconnections and disconnections, the plating literally is scraped off the female contact.
In order to solve these problems, various expedients have been utilized, such as deburring the male contact pins. This is an expensive process and extremely difficult with miniature connectors and contacts which are becoming prevalent in the electronic industry.
Another attempt to solve these problems has been to stitch or gang insert the pins into the insulator with their rough edges perpendicular to the smooth surfaces of the female contact. However, this presents a problem in mass production environments wherein the contacts, along with their continuous carrier strips, are rolled on a reel after the stamping process, for use in subsequent assembly processes of the electrical connector itself. If the tail of the male contact is bent out of the plane of the body portion thereof, damage or deformation of the contact often occurs during storage of the contacts and the carrier strips on the reel.
It should be understood that a solution to the problem is not simply to mount the male contacts in a connector housing such that the smooth surfaces of the pin portion always are oriented for presentation to the smooth portions of the female contact. It often is desirable to mount or insert the male contacts into elongated housings or headers in pairs, with the planes of the stamped contacts generally perpendicular to the elongated direction of the header and perpendicular to the flat contact-engaging surfaces of the female contact. With such mass assembly operations, the rough or stamped sides of the male contact are oriented for presentation to the smooth surfaces of the female contact.
Still another problem in the manufacture of electrical connectors using stamped and formed contacts is the provision of means for securing the contacts within a connector housing or header which, conventionally, is molded of dielectric material such as plastic or the like. A simple securing means is to provide barbs on the contact, such as the pin portion of a male contact, for biting into the plastic material within a respective passage in the housing or header. The extremely small contacts also render a simple press-fit of the contacts in respective passages in the housing ineffective, as the size of the connectors/contacts continue to become extremely small.
This invention is directed to solving these rather complex problems in an extremely simple and effective manner.